Initial engraved AirTag preorders sold out in minutes

AppleInsider

Apple's estimated shipping dates for an engraved four-pack AirTag began slipping within five minutes of pre-orders being opened.

Apple AirTag

The new AirTag appears to have exceeded Apple's expectations, with engraved and non-engraved versions soon slipping back from their original April 30 delivery date. The new order dates are changing fast enough that users are reporting inconsistent results across the US online Apple Store, as well as overseas.

All users originally saw a delivery date of April 30. Within five minutes, though, the estimate was changing. Many users began seeing a quoted "7-10 business days," which could still theoretically mean arriving by April 30.

However, others at the same time were seeing more specific estimates, chiefly "May 10." The results are the same in other countries, with users in Japan currently being notified of delivery from May 16 to May 23.

Apple's new AirTag is selling out

Apple has not revealed how many AirTags it produced in advance, nor detailed exactly how the engraving adds to the order process. Anecdotally, however, it appears that the most popular items are the four-pack, and engraved.

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Dougie.S

Order was confirmed for the engraved 4 pack in UK at 13:11, delivery is 5-7 business days (May 4-6th).
Both engraved and non-engraved slipped to those dates by 13:05

MisterKit

Looks like Apple has hit another one out of the park.

skippingrock

Or initial engraving limitation for it’s sudden sellout was a brilliant marketing plan to generate even more interest… but who knows but them. 

kkqd1337

i dont really see these as particularly exciting products to rush to

lkrupp

MisterKit said:

Looks like Apple has hit another one out of the park.

Until, of course, Tile gets a judge to order Apple to stop sales because... anti-competitive. /s

williamlondon

skippingrock said:

Or initial engraving limitation for it’s sudden sellout was a brilliant marketing plan to generate even more interest… but who knows but them. 

Oh FFS, this lunacy has been debunked so many times, by using of all things basic logic, but go ahead and keep seeing nutty conspiracies around every corner.  

Appleish

Boy, I am a longtime big ol' Apple Fanboy, but my wife and I could not come up with a single reason to order even one during the pandemic. (re: not going anywhere)

Michail

I went online @4:59 PDT, and Apple recommended one minute of extra sleep, >you’re ... early<;  placed my order two minutes later, went back to bed;  oh, the wait for this tiny thing, until April 30, will be excruciating!

coolerkid

I'm waiting on the 3rd party trackers, like chipolo, who have the good sense to put a keyring hole on their tracker and not make it so delicate it needs a protection case. Only Apple would make a key tracker that needs a case!

StrangeDays

skippingrock said:

Or initial engraving limitation for it’s sudden sellout was a brilliant marketing plan to generate even more interest… but who knows but them. 

Ah yes, the “artificially constrain supply in order to sell more” conspiracy. Yeah. That isn’t how it works. Apple is already on top of the industry, anything they announce gets front page coverage on CNN etc...they dont need to artificially limit production to generate interest. Doing so only hampers their ability to sell more thru the channel. Nope. At their scale, their problem is that of actual supply constraint.

bageljoey

If I didn’t go for the engraving, would it have shipped sooner? (I’m looking at the middle of May...)

StrangeDays

I forgot all about the AM launch, did order one (engraved) just now tho. The ETA is end of May or June... that’s some demand. The engraving adds about 3-4 weeks to delivery.

lkrupp

StrangeDays said:

skippingrock said:

Or initial engraving limitation for it’s sudden sellout was a brilliant marketing plan to generate even more interest… but who knows but them. 

Ah yes, the “artificially constrain supply in order to sell more” conspiracy. Yeah. That isn’t how it works. Apple is already on top of the industry, anything they announce gets front page coverage on CNN etc...they dont need to artificially limit production to generate interest. Doing so only hampers their ability to sell more thru the channel. Nope. At their scale, their problem is that of actual supply constraint.

You forgot to add in the ‘planned obsolescence’ conspiracy theory that’s trotted out every time Apple adds a new feature that the older model doesn’t have or lists a product as no longer supported. Conspiracy theories rule this country.

22july2013

Although the limit of four characters engraving seems to prohibit placing a phone number on the AirTag, I noticed there were lots of two-digit emojis to choose from so I was able to engrave my 7 digit phone number on mine. The highest two digit emoji is 50 so some phone numbers will be unengravable, however the fact that a phone number has only 7 digits, not 8, means you can still find a way to select some 7-digit phone numbers that contain high digits. There were two ways I could have engraved my number because of this trick. This means people can contact me if they find my AirTag even if I haven't put mine into "Lost Mode."

rbnetengr

22july2013 said:

Although the limit of four characters engraving seems to prohibit placing a phone number on the AirTag, I noticed there were lots of two-digit emojis to choose from so I was able to engrave my 7 digit phone number on mine. The highest two digit emoji is 50 so some phone numbers will be unengravable, however the fact that a phone number has only 7 digits, not 8, means you can still find a way to select some 7-digit phone numbers that contain high digits. There were two ways I could have engraved my number because of this trick. This means people can contact me if they find my AirTag even if I haven't put mine into "Lost Mode."

Phone numbers in many parts of the USA are ten digits, with overlay area codes being used to cover higher population areas, or even whole states.

That said, a label maker can make 10-digit phone number labels sized to fit an AirTag. 

patchythepirate

Looks like a great product, with great design and execution, I want to get some, but I can’t figure out a use case. Who are these for?? The best use case I could come up with for myself was putting these in luggage when traveling, but even that’s a stretch (unless they have a proximity alarm, which I don’t think they do). I do lose my mind sometimes, but I don’t think Apple can help me there. 

jd_in_sb

Want to annoy a lot of people? Hide one on a train. It will alert everyone that they are being stalked. 

Beats

Someone here (and other places) said these wouldn’t be a big product.

WTH

lkrupp said:

MisterKit said:

Looks like Apple has hit another one out of the park.

Until, of course, Tile gets a judge to order Apple to stop sales because... anti-competitive. /s

Tile needs to stop whining and get their own "Find My" enabled tracker out the door.  Apple has made it very clear that AirTags aren't suitable as an anti-theft device.  Tile can own that segment of the market if don't let Chipolo take it from them first.

lolliver

4 pack engraved has now slipped to the start of June here in Australia. But non-engraved are still available to ship on the release day. 

I have never had anything I ordered from Apple engraved before. But I ordered a 4 pack of AirTags engraved. The number of products Apple is engraving must have increased several times over with the release of AirTags.